


Live Like You're Dying

by idiedthedayirealizedidied



Category: Undertale (Video Game), underswap
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-04
Updated: 2019-01-14
Packaged: 2019-10-04 02:02:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17295572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/idiedthedayirealizedidied/pseuds/idiedthedayirealizedidied
Summary: “You- You're DYING!?” He shrieked, interrupting you mid-sentence. “You've gotta be kidding me! Then you've got to be injured somewhere if you arecurrently in the process of dying. You've gotta get healed! Like! Right now!” He shook his hands as he seemed to panic before running past you, grabbing your arm and pulling you back the way you'd come.This was not a response you were used to, nor one that you were prepared for. You couldn't respond, so you let him pull you along.





	1. Errands to Run

You could feel your body dying as you sat on the park bench, could feel every last tick of your HP as it went down. Most would say that your lying if you ever told them that you could feel yourself dying, but then you'd retort with a casual “Then Spiderman couldn't feel his end coming either,” to which they would either sit quietly or would retort with facts about Spiderman and his spider sense. You smiled at both responses and would often get into talks about your favorite Marvel superhero, and sometimes your favorite DC superhero.  
Though it was fairly true that you could feel yourself dying. You could feel your stomach fighting against you and rotting in your gut, could feel your heart’s every struggle to beat, and every single time your muscles screamed against your movement. And every moment you lived, you could feel your HP ticking away, being replenished when you ate monster food or saw a monster doctor, and then beginning to tick away again. Nothing you did seemed to work in trying to keep your HP from constantly ticking away, not even the doctors knew what to do, and the supplements and prescriptions they gave you never seemed to work for long.  
Children ran by in front of you as you stayed on the park bench, taking a rest from your errands around the city today. Your bag rested next to you as you watched the children run around and play as their mothers walked and chatted behind them. It was nice to see children so happy, to see families so happy. You smiled and waved at a child in a green and yellow striped shirt that had stopped to look at you from across the path. Soon, a tall and fluffy goat monster joined them. The child waved at you as the monster took their hand, and he waved at you as well. You smiled and nodded back as the two continued on down the path, most likely busy on their own errands for the day.  
You watched the two of them walk down the path until you couldn't see them anymore before carefully getting up with your bag and continuing down the path the opposite way. You passed by the playground and paused to watch the children play for a minute. They played tag on the jungle gym, and across the playground there was a skeleton sleeping on the bench, and another one, significantly shorter than the one on the bench, playing volleyball with a lizard. They were having what a seemed to be a such a grand time.  
You continued walking, and flinched midstep as your HP ticked down. Your stomach curled in your gut and you scrunch your face up in pain. Taking a deep breath, you continued on, trying to ignore the pain in your rotting stomach as you went. You heard someone calling from behind you “Hey Human!” and you almost stopped, thinking that it could possibly be someone talking to you, but it couldn't be for you, you didn’t know anybody in this part of town, so you kept walking with your arm wrapped around your stomach, and your hand holding onto the strap of your bag.  
“Human! Hey Human wait up!” The monster called from behind you, quickly catching up next to you and turning around to jog backwards in front of you. It was the short skeleton you'd seen playing volleyball less than two minutes ago. You stopped walking and stared at him in mild shock as he stopped with you. “Hi! I was wondering if you were okay! You seemed to be a little injured when I saw you earlier?” He cocked his skull to the side as he stared up at you, waiting for a response.  
You shrugged, “Yea, I'm kind of in the process of dying,” You smiled down at him as his eyes filled with shock. “But I’m-”  
“You- You're DYING!?” He shrieked, interrupting you mid-sentence. “You've gotta be kidding me! Then you've got to be injured somewhere if you are _currently in the process of dying_. You've gotta get healed! Like! Right now!” He shook his hands as he seemed to panic before running past you, grabbing your arm and pulling you back the way you'd come.  
This was not a response you were used to, nor one that you were prepared for. You couldn't respond, so you let him pull you along, even as you felt your heart rate increase and scream in its agony to keep up with itself.  
Your HP ticked down and you almost tripped over yourself.  
He brought you back to the park where the other skeleton was still asleep, the lizard monster was sitting where they'd played volleyball, tossing the ball up and down and talking to a fish monster that was standing above her and hugging herself.  
“Guys! Guys! Hey guys! Do you guys have any of that monster candy we got from Buna?” he asked loudly and urgently. The skeleton on the bench was awoken by the loudness of the one dragging you along. The lizard monster shook her head.  
“I know I don’t have anymore Berry, why?” She questioned. The skeleton on the bench was staring at me, and I smiled at him.  
“Because this human is currently in the process of _dying_ and needs to be healed immediately!” he let go of me and ran over to a bag on the ground and started digging through it as the other three present were looking at me in surprise. The lizard monster was on her feet looking very concerned and like she was going to cart me to the nearest hospital in a few seconds, and the fish monster was staring at me in shock like I was some kind of scientific anomaly. The skeleton on the bench didn’t really have a change in expression, but his posture did straighten as the hands in his hoodie pockets shuffled around.  
I shrugged awkwardly and scratched the back of my head. “Eheheh… yea… slowly dying isn’t that great experience but you don’t have to go through the trouble to help me. I am just a stranger after all….”  
“Nonsense! The Magnificent Berry will help everyone who needs it!” the skeleton said as he pulled item after item out of his bag.  
The skeleton on the bench got up and pulled his hand out of his pocket, “Don’t worry bro, I got some left over,” he said as he walked the two steps over to me and held his hand out with a piece of monster candy in it.  
You put your hands up, “No, no really, I’ll be fine without it, you don’t need to help me.” God why haven’t you walked away ye- **Ping** _check_. You froze where you stood and looked up at the tall skeleton next to you before raising your hand and papping it over the expanse of his face. “Please don’t check me.” You smiled as you took your hand away, he looked shocked at your actions, as did the others. You waved at them before turning around and beginning to walk away, not pausing when you heard Berry’s hurried footsteps behind you.  
He got in front of you with an extremely determined look, grabbed your hand, shoved the candy into your hand, and then ran back to his friends. You looked down at the candy in your hand before closing your fingers around it with a smile and shaking your head.  
The candy was put into your pocket as you made your way to the supermarket a few blocks away from the park. You put your bag in the cart you grabbed as you went around gathering this week’s groceries and basic life necessities like toilet paper, hand soap, and dishwasher fluid. Getting to the checkout lane, you got the reusable bags you’d saved for years out of your bag and handed them to the lady bagging when it was your turn to check out. “Hi, you find everything okay?” the cashier questioned. You nodded and smiled. You’d found everything just fine. Your items were scanned and bagged as you paid.  
The bags were placed in the cart by the bagger, and you pushed the cart back to one of the cart corals. You grabbed your bags, testing the weight and evening them out between your two hands. It was a bit heavy, but taking it to the bus stop on the other side of the park shouldn’t be that bad, right? You started walking.  
You’d been in the supermarket for a while, and it was beginning to get later in the day as your guilt set in. You shouldn’t have been rude to those monsters, they had just been trying to help you after all, and now you weren’t going to be able to make amends because they had probably left the park by now.  
_tick_  
You walked on, concentrating on carrying your bags to the bus stop and not dropping them all over the ground.  
They were slowly getting heavier and heavier as you got closer and closer to where you had talked to the monster group. There was a park bench there that you could sit down at and take a breather, you still had another 20 minutes before the next bus arrived.  
You arrived at the spot, and were surprised that the monster group was still there, even if they were just beginning to pack up. The taller skeleton wasn’t taking a nap on the bench anymore, and was standing around with his friends and his brother with his back to the bench. You closed your eyes for a second, taking a deep breath before moving and occupying the bench, your bags crowding around your feet. You leaned back with a sigh and closed your eyes after a moment of staring at the sky and listening to the rustle of the packing monsters behind you.  
Maybe they wouldn’t notice you, and you wouldn’t have to worry about anything.  
_tick_  
“Oh! Human!” Berry said from behind you. You smiled. “Have you eaten the monster candy I gave you yet? I’m sure you’d gain some stamina as well as some HP if you haven’t yet.”  
“Heh, yea, I bet it would.” you said softly. You were so tired. You just wanted to go home now.  
“Oh! Groceries! Do you need help bringing them to your home?”  
That’d be nice…  
“Okay then! We’ll help you bring them to your home! You must live nearby if you were walking with them.”  
“Huh? Oh… I said that out loud didn’t I…. No. I was actually taking them to the bus stop near here, my home’s about a block from another bus stop, and I don’t have a car.” You opened your eyes, sat up and hid wince as your stomach seemed to bite itself _tick_.  
Berry was gathering up some of your groceries, “Then I’ll just have to come with you now won’t I?”  
You chuckled, “No, no, that won’t be necessary, it’s just a bit more walking and then I have to wait for the bus. You wouldn’t get home in time for dinner if you helped me. I’ll be fine on my own.” he held onto your bags as gathered up the rest. You sighed. “But if you really want to, you can help me bring them to the bus stop.”  
He smiled, “Deal! Brother!” we both looked towards the taller skeleton. He was staring at me. “You go wait by the car, I’ll be there in a few minutes.” Berry turned and began walking towards the bus stop. You nodded at his brother.  
“Have a good night.” you said before following after Berry.

When the two of you got to the bus stop, he gently set your bags down on the ground and then insisted that he give you his phone number in case you needed any further assistance, and also so that he could invite you over for tacos some time. He’d really like to be your friend.  
You waited for the bus alone, and in silence. It was rather lonely.


	2. Chapter 2

You reached your house, and set your groceries down outside the door while you dug through your bag for your keys. They were only slightly hard to find amongst the other junk in there since they were slightly large and full of anime related key chains that you’d gotten from an ex that had gone to Japan for a summer when you were in high school.  
You unlocked the door and carried your groceries inside in slightly smaller and lighter loads than on the way here as you thought about your high school days. You missed them, slightly. Only because you hadn’t been dying back then, but some unhealthy and regretful events later, and your internal systems were well on their way to shutting down. It sucked really, because that was only a little over a year ago that you could eat without having to take a handful of enzymes and supplements before every meal. A little over a year ago you wouldn’t have needed to take sleep medications for nightmares, and antidepressants for depression, anxiety and PTSD. A little over a year ago, you were healthy, on the track team, and not on your way to an earlier than expected death.  
With all of your groceries sitting on the kitchen counters, you closed and locked your front door. You went back into the kitchen and began to put your groceries away, slowly as you were still relatively stuck in the past and were only really half focused on putting things away.  
Ever since you’d made the dumb decision to join that “science experiment,” you’d moved away from the city you grew up in and tried to rewrite your life from a better perspective; a happier, and kinder one. Though, anybody who knew you from back then would know that you got accepted into the college here, so it wouldn’t be too hard to track you down if anybody wanted to. But so far, nobody has and hopefully won't, and you’ve been walking through life the best you could while trying to balance a low income job, bills, and clinically dying.  
You folded all the bags after all of the groceries were put away, and put them in the cupboard under the sink to be retrieved when you went shopping next week. You began to grab some of the things you had bought so that you could start on preparing your own dinner, even if you currently weren’t all that hungry or in the mood for a few hours of pain and throwing up, when your phone vibrated on the counter. You set a packet of taco sauce down on the counter and began to open a pound of meat and dumping it into the pan as you checked your phone.

7:18 June 23rd 20XX  
THE MAGNIFICENT BERRY  
*Hello Human! I am messaging you too see if you and your groceries got home safely this evening!

You smiled and chuckled as you turned on the burner and broke up the meat with a spatula.

*Yes Berry, I got home safely with my groceries, and am now making dinner with them. Thank you for your concern. I trust that you have also made it home safely with your brother? I would hope that your not texting and driving, Berry

You set the phone down and focused on cooking the meat so you didn’t burn it like all the other times you’ve cooked and texted. It was a rare occurrence now, since none of your old friends remained in contact with you as the summer dragged itself along it’s slowly shortening road. It was rather lonely to not have any friends to talk to, but that was fine. You could deal with a bit of loneliness, surely you’d meet some new people when the semester started this year, and you seemed to have made some today too! If Berry was anything to go by at least.  
You preheated the oven and set your taco shell and tortilla on the rack. They would be ready around the same time that the meat would be completely cooked, and the sauce cooked into it. You placed a lid, with a slight crack along the edge to let out steam, after dumping the pack of taco sauce in. Then you left the kitchen with your bag that'd you'd brought with you on your walk. Going into the bathroom you began to remove all the bottles you carried with you; all your supplements and pain meds. You carried them with you everywhere you went in case you wanted to eat out somewhere, or were just in a lot of general pain.  
The medicine cabinet was slightly ajar, the magnet that would have kept it closed being long since lost, rendering it broken and unclosable. You opened it the rest of the way and pulled the two daily medicine organizers you had; one was for your morning meds, such as antidepressants, and the other was for your sleep medication. Today was Sunday, meaning that all, except the last one for tonight's sleep meds, was empty. It was time to refill them as you counted out your supplements and enzymes for tonight's meal.  
You don't really understand why you were constantly being prescribed supplements and enzymes when you would just end up throwing everything up later in the day after you ate. The doctor said it was to help absorb more nutrients, and also add some more to the count so that you could continue functioning properly. In your opinion, that didn't make much sense since you'd gone many many days in high school, not eating anything except a few pieces of junk food if you were lucky. You'd been able to function just fine back then--  
Right…. It's one of those “back then” things. Back then you were healthy and able to eat whatever the fuck you wanted without much consequences. Back then is not now. Now, you're dying, and need help to stay alive for a while longer instead of just laying around in the hospital waiting for your HP to run out. Though… This was a lot more fun than sitting there staring out a window with nothing to do all day.  
Daily pill doses counted out, as well as this meals support, you put the containers back in the cabinet, and everything else was left on the counter to be shoved back in your bag after tomorrow's breakfast.  
With tonight's support meds in hand, you went back into the kitchen where the meat was simmering in the pan with just the barest amount of sauce left in the pan. The oven beeped, signaling that it was done preheating. You lifted the lid off of the pan and stirred the meat around with the spatula while turning the oven of and pulling it open. You set the spatula down and grabbed a paper plate from the cupboard.  
You never had enough motivation to do the dishes after eating, so instead, you made your life easier by using paper plates, and chopsticks when eating food that wasn't hand food like tacos or chicken wings.  
The plate was set on the counter and you reached into the oven, feeling the heat against your hand as you pulled the shell and tortilla out, moving quickly to avoid the stinging pain from the heat against your fingers.  
_tick_  
The tip of the shell chipped when it landed on the plate.  
You paused and leaned against the counter for a minute, wondering if your HP was about to plummet into oblivion, wondering if tonight was going to be the night you finally died, wondering if--if someone would come when you called for help because you don't want to die alone. You don't want to be alone when you finally pass. Nobody would know, nobody would realize, nobody would notice, nobody would care, nobody would _remember you_.  


**Stat**

“Y/N”

LV 2  
HP 204/420

AT 26 (47) EXP: 20  
DEF 45 (60) NEXT: 40

WEAPON: Pocket knife  
ARMOR: Old beanie

A tear slipped down your face as your internal panic began to fade after a minute. Your HP wasn’t plummeting. You weren't going to die tonight.  
You sighed and served yourself the tacos. You ate alone on the floor of the kitchen, and crumbled up the plate after you were done, shoving it into the trashcan full of other paper plates under the sink. That should be taken out at some point… You can do it tomorrow.  
You got off the floor and went into the bathroom, digging around in the drawer on the right of the sink for a bath bomb. You set it on the edge of the bathtub, and left again, heading to your bedroom where you sat on your bed and started scrolling through YouTube as your stomach began to process that there was something in it. Soon, you were in immense pain and went back to the bathroom with pajamas. You turned the faucet in the bath on, and stripped as it began to fill. You threw your shirt over the mirror, and smiled at your pretend reflection beyond. It didn't exist, and neither did your marred skin. Climbing into the bathtub, you let it fill till it was about a half inch from the brim, and then dropped the bath bomb in, watching it bob fiz on the surface. 

You sat in the bathtub for a long time, letting the warmth warm you and ease the pain of your stomach trying to digest everything and absorb what it needed too. And when the feeling that comes long before you throw everything up arrived, you pulled the plug on the drain and climbed out, wrapping yourself in a towel as you sat next to the toilet.  
Everything you'd eaten from today came up, most of it was unrecognizable tan mush, mixed with the recognizable chunks of taco and burrito. It burned as it all came back up, but ended after a minute.

You crawled into bed, curling up into a ball and trying to pull yourself from the deepening hole of memories before you tried to put your exhausted body and mind to rest for the night….

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not as satisfied with this as I'd like to be, but I let things write themselves so I'll deal with it and edit later. This chapter gave me some pretty good ideas on what to do with this so I'll see you guys soon  
> Have a lovely day buds
> 
> **it took me a fucking hour to post this cuz I was dicking around with HTML trying to get a text box around the stats  
> Didn't work,which should be obvious since there isnt one there lol  
> If anybody knows how to HTML a text box on here on AO3, please share cuz I'd love to know


	3. Chapter 3

_You floated in the dark, your eyes closed to keep out everything around you. You could feel hands touching you, dragging along your skin, leaving a burning and itchy sensation behind. A snake coiled around your chest, circled your throat, sealed your mouth shut, and its head hovered by your ear, hissing and whispering, trying to get you to open your eyes to the darkness around you. It’s tongue snaked out and licked up your cheek, catching the tears that were there, forming and falling out of fear of what you would see if you opened your eyes. You shouldn’t have gone to sleep, but now you can’t wake up._  
_“Open your eyessss y/n”_  
_“It’sss not assss bad asss it sseemss”_  
_“Everyone knowssss you’ve ssseen worssse”_  
_“Been through worssse”_  
_“Than a little nightmare”_  
_“Open your eyesss y/n”_  
_You could feel his tongue flick against your cheek as he talked, his voice warping as it left his mouth, changing the way he sounded as though every line were a different person speaking, and not just the snake that was stealing your breath and suffocating you as you floated in the darkness._  
_“Go away,” you whimpered._  
_“Oh”_  
_“But why”_  
_“Would I do that”_  
_“Y/n?”_  
_“Please, just go away, leave me alone,” you couldn’t move your arms. You couldn’t move at all, not even to bend your pinky toe._  
_You couldn’t move, couldn’t breath as you felt the darkness, and the snake, press closer in on you._

_“Open your eyes y/n, there’s no need to be afraid. I promise I won’t hurt you, I won’t let anyone hurt you ever again. You’ll be safe with me, they won’t ever touch you again y/n.”_  
_You could feel the darkness pressing in on you as the light in front of your eyes grew and grew, encompassing everything in the dark. And then there was the voice, it was his _voice.__  
_“Y/n, please, I’m right here, there’s nothing to be afraid of, you can open your eyes,” he cooed, and you slowly cracked your eyes open to the light beyond. He was standing in front of you, his eyes full of love and worry as his hands came up and cradled your face. “There you are my little starshine.”_  
_He pulled you into a hug as you stood there and cried. Around the two of you, was the wreckage of an old building, ablaze and smoking with spark of color dancing in the wind around you._  
_You were able to move again, and you wrapped your arms around him, gripping the back of his shirt and burying your face in his shoulder. His hand pet your hair._  
_It was calming, but didn’t last long. Soon, you were leaning on nothing and falling through darkness, watching faces form in the black and stare back at you as the chunks of your memory fell around you. Your body twisted and flipped as you fell through nothing with the wreckage of your memory._  
_The black changed to gray, and then into a myriad of colors as a city built itself around you. You landed on your feet, just a touch above a superhero landing._  
_You lost control of your body as a streak of blue grazed your shoulder._  
_You were up and running, watching a battle of color and watching as people you knew took hits and screamed in agony as their HP dropped._  
_She was standing there, opposite of him, having a standoff, and colors flew between them._  
_You knew his tricks._  
_You knew she didn’t._  
_You needed to do something._  
_Everything was moving too fast, and all you could feel was panic and adrenaline._  
_Too many colors._  
_Blue._  
_Yellow._  
_Red._  
_Too many colors._  
_Too much magic._  
_You shoved her to the side as yellow left his hand, coming low and fast, it embedded itself in your stomach._  
_You screamed._  
_It hurt._  
_It burned._  
_You fell to the ground, clutching your midsection and curling around it._  
_You couldn’t breathe_  
_Couldn’t think_  
_Couldn’t move_  
_It hurt so much_  
_What was even going on_  
_Why was there so much color_  
_So much magic everywhere._  
_She was at your side, green flowing from her hands as he stood there in shock._  
_You stared at him, wishing he’d move, say something, do something, to just stop standing there looking like he’d just made the biggest mistake of his life._  
_You screamed as blue hit him “ALAN!”_

__

**BEEP BEEP BEEP**

You woke up with tears streaming down the side of your face, your stomach hurting like no tomorrow, and a sore throat as you curled into a ball, covering your ears as your alarm went off on the nightstand by your head.  
You couldn’t think  
Can’t breath  
Everything hurts  
It was too loud and wouldn’t quiet down.

Your alarm snoozed itself after a few minutes, and it took you a few minutes more to calm yourself down enough to get up and turn it off for good.  
Your body shivered and shook as you left the room, wiping your face dry with the sleeve of your sweater as you went into the kitchen.  
You could still see the faces from the dark, and your skin burned with etched memories of someone touching you, and your stomach hurt with the memory of being hit by Alan’s attack.  
You felt dirty, itchy, and like there were bugs crawling under your skin.  
You got a glass of water and sat on the floor to drink it. You grabbed your phone off of the counter as you went down.  
There was an unread message from Berry, left from yesterday when you had been making dinner, as well as another one telling you good night and to sleep well. You smiled a little bit at how he seemed to care for someone he had barely just met.

*hey Berry, sorry i didnt respond yesterday, i was a little preoccupied. I hope you slept well too

You set the device to the side as you sipped on your water, trying to focus on something other than the pain in your gut, and the bugs under your skin. You tried to think of things you needed to do today, but couldn’t come up with anything. The only thing that you could do was go to work, but you didn’t have any today since you had told them you couldn’t work Mondays.  
You didn’t have anything to do… all of your errands had been done yesterday after work….  
You sighed and laid down on the floor.  
You closed your eyes and focused on erasing the faces from behind your eyelids.  
You rubbed at the scar on your stomach.  
You wondered what Alan was doing, if he was alright, if he was even still alive after all this time. You knew that if you hadn’t dropped at a park you’d’ve never gotten help and a way to stay alive, you’d be dead by now.  
You picked your phone up and turned on some music to drown out the silence of your apartment.  
You’d have to get up at some point and do something, like eat and shower. You needed to find something outside of the house to do. 

**~~~~~~**

You walked down the path at the park with your bag over your shoulder, and your headphones in. It was a lot calmer and quieter than it had been yesterday when you’d been running your errands. There weren’t any kids on the playground, and no families enjoying themselves in the grass.  
You continued walking, looking around and watching everything that was going on. You were watching nothing.  
There was a hotdog stand at the crossroads of the park. The person working it currently had their head down, they were wearing an orange hoodie that kind of reminded you of Berry’s brother, whom you’d seen yesterday. It would be purely coincidental if he was the one working the hotdog stand here.  
You were walking past the hotdog stand when the worker lifted their head up. “Mmmm, ‘ey aren’t you bro’s new friend?” he said tiredly. You looked back with a smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> mmm roar  
> have an update  
> and some info  
> when y/n's HP drops, 1HP is like being poked with a sewnig needle, 5HP is like getting punched in the face, and so on and so forth  
> so like, when they flinch, it's generally a higher drop
> 
> also, if you had to pick, what would your soul color be, and what would your magic attacks be?


End file.
